When I was a kid, I took The Brady Bunch and The Partridge Family very seriously. It was a world to me in the same way that the Greek myths would have been had I read them. You know, Marcia is Athena and Mr. Brady is Zeus. – George Saunders
I tend to foster drama via bleakness. If I want the reader to feel sympathy for a character, I cleave the character in half, on his birthday. And then it starts raining. And hes made of sugar. – George Saunders
The best thing that ever happened to me is that nothing happened in writing. I ended up working for engineering companies, and thats where I found my material, in the everyday struggle between capitalism and grace. Being broke and tired, you dont come home your best self. – George Saunders
I turned 54 this year and I find myself feeling like Im in a bit of a race to get down on paper the way I really feel about life – or the way it has presented to me. And because it has presented to me very beautifully, this is hard. It is technically very hard to show positive manifestations. – George Saunders
A preoccupied family: they none of them threw themselves into the interests of the rest, but each ploughed his or her own furrow. Their thoughts, their little passions and hopes and desires, all ran along separate lines. Family life is like this—animated, but collateral. – Rose Macaulay, Daisy & Daphne, 1928